Inception Blu-ray Review

• 7th Dec 2010

It is an endlessly fascinating subject – mind manipulation and dreams… In fact it is pretty much on a par with time travel (something we wouldn’t be shocked about if Chris Nolan decided to tackle that subject in a future film). Inception keeps the mind ticking through all of its heavy exposition – whilst never really dumbing down – instead relying on character and visual demonstration.

Inception finds Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his team of mind-heist experts all but forced to do a job for one heavy businessman Saito (Ken Watanabe). The job is to not steal an idea from someone, but to place an idea. This involves all the right people working at various levels of their skill in order to apprehend the intended victim (Cillian Murphy) and invade his dreams in order to go about their business. To explain more would spoil half the fun as it takes half the film setting up the dynamics of how this all works.

What does matter is that pretty much every department has come together to create this visually exciting piece of thriller/drama and have excelled in doing so. Whilst the effects are creative, it is the practical effects and sets used that deserve special mention here as it makes all the difference from the CG world.

The cast pretty much all do a fine job. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy and Tom Hardy all further proving why they are the best buys around at the moment. DiCaprio in his second mind bending thriller of the year (following the very impressive Shutter Island) adds another notch to his vastly maturing resume and he is finally starting to look like a man in his films, instead of a skinny, high pitched voiced romantic lead he was a decade ago. The ladies in the cast fare less well. Marion Cotillard is a depressing presence (which in fairness she is meant to be) and Ellen Page is evidently far too young for the role she has taken (as the “architect” you’d expect someone who was aware of the mechanics of the job and world they were entering as well as someone who didn’t look like they just tripped out the school door. Adding make up to her here only makes her look even more like a teen coming of age). She is also lumbered with some of the worst expositional questions to ask and therefore, we are stuck with her as her role apparently is there only for our benefit. It would be interesting to see a version of the film where her character is removed and the team merely go about their business. It would shorten the running time and lengthen patience.

This film doesn’t diminish too much on reruns thanks to the heavy expositional scenes being filmed and acted with flair. Chris Nolan has crafted yet another wonderful film that proves you can be intelligent in a big budget film. Yet even so – this is still not his best or cleverest work.

The Blu-Ray comes with the pointless DVD copy and a digital version. The extras are very light though. There is about 40 minutes worth of ‘making of’ material that you can watch as you watch the film or by themselves. The second disc comes with production images, trailers and a 40 minute documentary on dreams, which is fairly enlightening. There is also a 15 minute animated comic of The Cobol Job which sets up the film. Hardly satisfactory for one of the biggest films of the year. Nolan seems to have stopped doing commentaries since Insomnia, which is fairly annoying, but even if he isn’t game to sit down and talk they could at the very least have provided us with something more substantial on the extras front.

Steven Hurst